


Gone with the Tide

by user_name



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Angst, Dark, M/M, Romance, Small Towns, Superstition, homophobic violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-26 17:24:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17145935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/user_name/pseuds/user_name
Summary: Kyungsoo is a "child of the moon," a boy with a mysterious illness that makes his skin unable to withstand the heat of the blistering summer sun. This makes him the frequent subject of gossip for the suspicious, wary villagers, and the new neighbor Jongin is intrigued.





	Gone with the Tide

For years, Kyungsoo had waited out entire seasons by disappearing into a heavy cloak of dark woolen sheets. By mid-morning, the sun would be hot and high in a sweet summer sky thick with bees while Kyungsoo’s room would be cool and dark, blocked out from the world with four layers of blinds.

Jongin usually helped, latching curtain line to hook like the skilled fisherman he was. Kyungsoo found him surprising—quiet and strong, a father’s boy, yet never rude or intrusive. But he had been getting curious lately. “Have you ever touched a ladybug’s back? Or smelled the roses after a fresh rain?”

The questions made Kyungsoo uncomfortable. He knew of inescapable heat, layers and layers of angry red skin peeling away from him like scrolls, and the neighbor’s wary stares, but that had been years ago, and out of necessity. Never had he stood out under the sun after his father had passed; with no family to force him to farm anymore, he could burrito up in bed all he wanted. Jongin brought in the fish and Kyungsoo cooked. _That is all,_ he thought, and completely forgot to answer.

If anything, Kyungsoo’s stony silence spurred Jongin on. He planned for weeks, tallying orders of the freshest rose petals, racking his brain for which rare instances had made Kyungsoo smile, and searching through waterlogged library archives for maps of the quietest coves or forest glades.

Today, Kyungsoo was pale and reluctant under the white sky. In one hand, he pointed his grandmother’s bright red parasol straight up into the clouds like a lifeline. Otherwise plain and wrapped in the usual black, he was stiff even among the palm trees that stood scattered about the Chinese pagoda park. The rough trunks were persistent reminders that they were in the middle of Nowhere, Canada. Kyungsoo had been too nervous to keep his head up upon entering, so he’d missed the sign. It might as well be a Japanese tea garden. He hadn’t visited in broad daylight in years and he hated the uncertainty—it grated on his nerves like a distraction.

Thankfully, the place was empty. The men were desperately fishing for catches and the women were busy soothing children whose mouths stretched wide and hungry like the gaping beaks of newborn chicks. Old sailors swore on their lives that mating season used to bring waters teeming with Kings—you could have walked across their red backs like a bridge. Now the tides retreated further from shore every year. “The moon is a changeable mistress,” they said. Every night, she reined the sea in a few steps closer to the horizon, forcing them to sail in deeper. Kyungsoo knew that they regarded him warily because they saw her reflected in his milky irises. Twin moons in his eyes like blind man Tom. Kyungsoo could taste their unease, their suspicion. It disturbed him.

Did they think he was to blame for something as changeable as the sea? Did they think he was _magical_ because they had never seen a young person with white hair before? He had read of others like him—people who were pale, who couldn’t work under the sun, people who were half blind. One of the midwife books in the village archives called it albinism, but aside from himself, he had found no recorded births of a child with the condition. He wished he had. Then at least he’d know he wasn’t alone.

Soon enough, the looming rain clouds began to feel soothing against his skin. Here with Jongin childishly ducking behind a stone lion every so often, he could almost forget how exposed he was, how vast the sky felt. It could swallow him whole.

Jongin caught playful glimpses of Kyungsoo hiding behind his flowery parasol and noticed how even the bleary sun was able to shine through to cast pink shadows across his cheek. Kyungsoo felt Jongin’s eyes studying him from between the talons of a stone lion’s claw and suddenly regretted the parasol. It would surely rain soon; an umbrella would have been just fine.

“There’s a temple at the end of this path,” Jongin said. “It smells amazing. It’s like the sea.” He led Kyungsoo along the path strewn with rose petals to where a giant stone Buddha was carved into the wall. Purple incense smoked at his feet, leaving ghostly trails to curve along the wind.

Kyungsoo repressed a shudder. His parents were buried here. Jongin was oblivious. The incense sticks were Kyungsoo’s own prayer offerings, something he slipped out every night to do out of obligation more than anything, or maybe fear. The Buddha’s eyes were always following him.

Today it _did_ smell like the sea—chilly and lonely and beckoning like a cold embrace—and it sent Kyungsoo’s heart racing.

“Thank you for this, really, but I’m tired,” he lied.

Jongin studied the dirt and regretted the extra-large order of rose petals. “Okay,” he finally said.

“We can come out some other time,” Kyungsoo said when they reached his doorstep. “Nighttime, perhaps.”

“Of course,” Jongin said, too quickly. Kyungsoo didn’t miss how his eyes lit up.

━━━━━━━━┓ ✠ ┏━━━━━━━━

The night was dark as tar. They slipped out under cover of the naked moon and snuck onto a narrow forested path by the pagodas. Kyungsoo grabbed blindly, struck a soft warm thing. A muffled _“ow”_ cut through the panic—he’d found Jongin’s face.

“Oh!”

Jongin hushed away Kyungsoo’s apologies. “Stay behind me,” he said over his shoulder.

Kyungsoo stuttered, his steps faltering. “I-I don’t—” A yellow ray sliced across, illuminating his face as a storm cloud drifted past and undressed the moon. His eyes were wide and washed out, the tiny pupil swimming in a sea of white. Everything from his worried brows to the tips of his clear lashes quivered, and he reached out slowly, shakily, soft and uncertain like he would flinch from touch.

Of course Kyungsoo couldn’t see where “behind him” was. Jongin felt like an idiot. He counted three delicate green veins threaded through Kyungsoo’s wrists and began to regret bringing him here; he stood out like a beacon.

But Jongin didn’t want to let him down, and besides, there was a selfish little piece of him that wanted to make this _the night_. The wind sighed. The water lapped at the sides of the cliff and glittered invitingly. It was dark enough; they wouldn’t be seen. Jongin took Kyungsoo’s hand and pulled him close. “I’ll go slow.” Kyungsoo merely nodded.

Jongin used one tentative hand to feel the edge where the pines took over, letting the harsh bark guide him around curves. Upon reaching a dip in the hill Jongin slid wildly, the dividers on his flip flops digging into the space between his big toes and making him yelp. Kyungsoo came gasping after and Jongin couldn’t stop apologizing.

Kyungsoo just shook his head, his cloudy eyes unreadable. “I’m fine.” The waves were closer now, more insistent. Jongin looked around and realized that they’d made it.

Twenty feet or so above the water, the cave glowed blue against Kyungsoo’s face and made his translucent skin seem lit from within. He took a few haltering steps forward and then ran up as if to touch, his hands hesitating over the wall’s mossy surface. “It’s beautiful,” he said. The soft tendrils glowed green at the edges and seemed to pulsate and unfurl, stretching and yearning toward his fingertips. They lengthened and twisted into something that fluttered softly at the edge of the cliff. Jongin blinked.

“Wow, it’s like a treehouse up here!” Kyungsoo turned the thing over in his hands while Jongin closed in cautiously, feeling out the sharp edge with his toes. A rope hung from a branch, swung limply in Kyungsoo’s grasp like a dead snake. There was a twinkle in his eyes that made Jongin’s stomach turn. Under the guise of darkness, it was like a switch had been flipped; he looked sure and relaxed, almost mischievous. 

By the time Jongin reached the edge, Kyungsoo was already falling. His paleness glowed under the sky. He didn’t flail like Jongin thought he would, just dropped through the air with his limbs curved gently upwards, a falling feather, a flying siren, the rope swinging lightly behind him like a comet’s tail. He flew toward the ocean and Jongin’s heart stopped.

The villagers said he was cursed, that only a cursed family could breed a cursed child. Everyone close to him had died at sea. Watching him curve through the air like that, Jongin could almost believe it. Even the fat mating crickets held their breaths as Kyungsoo’s body soared and entered the water with less than a ripple, a silent harpoon. Jongin thought he could feel the cool spray on his face and startled, felt abruptly broken out of a trance.

When Kyungsoo surfaced, it was to laugh. “There are fish down here!” He called.

 _So it wasn’t too high after all,_ Jongin thought dumbly.

The sea glinted, reflecting diamonds of white off its rolling waves and into Jongin’s eyes. It looked like it was winking. Kyungsoo was just one sharp reflection on a darkened wave, shiny like a suspended drop of moonstone. 

“Come on!” Kyungsoo called up to him again. “It’s pretty. The fish tickle your toes.”

Jongin remembered stories of sirens luring fishermen into the depths, where they impaled them forever on dead, spiny corals. A strange thrill tingled through his spine. _What am I getting myself into?_

“Hey,” Kyungsoo said. “I’m a fish, catch me!” There was a smile in his voice and it was hard to be sure, but his eyebrows seemed arched in a challenge. Jongin gaped. Kyungsoo was never _playful._ Jongin tugged the rope once, twice, and swung out into the center of the water. At the top of his swing he experienced a momentary weightlessness, and then he let go.

The water came rushing up towards him and then he was dropping deep, deep into darkness. He kicked desperately and panic overtook his lungs for one horrifying, prolonged second as he couldn’t tell which way was up.

Gasping. Sweet air hitting his lungs in deep, painful breaths. The next second, Kyungsoo stealing it away. Dimly, Jongin realized that Kyungsoo’s lips were the softest thing he’d ever tasted.

They swam around, chasing each other from shore to shore. How Kyungsoo could dive so deep and hold his breath for so long, Jongin didn’t know. They stayed like that until sunrise came and flooded the water with pink. Kyungsoo gasped against his lips, “I have to go back,” and Jongin nodded reluctantly, feeling lightheaded. Back on shore, drowsy fishermen loaded bait at the docks.

The oldest fisherman had been watching them since sunrise. He had risen early for his wife and children and was alarmed to recognize Jongin, the strong young man who had provided many a helping hand, as one of the sinners. He saw how the boy who glowed like the moon kept them afloat despite the rough current, how they bobbed in the center of the moon’s reflection, two bodies intertwined in a milky spotlight. It was hypnotic. It was unsettling.

The pale one was sinful, unnatural. He rolled his smooth torso in waves. He was spreading a disease. In the fisherman’s weak and uncertain heart was the fear that the same fate would befall his young son.

Back by the sea, Jongin watched as his secret sweetheart bundled up and disappeared into a heavy cloak of darkness.

━━━━━━━━┓ ✠ ┏━━━━━━━━

Kyungsoo was walking home from the store under the setting sun. He’d gotten braver recently, become used to going out with just the umbrella Jongin had given him for cover.

The three men were on bikes. They rode onto the sidewalk and came up behind him, dismounting to grab him by the neck while he was looking down at his bag of eggs and fresh cabbage, and dragged his face against a wall. He was shocked into useless flailing. All his eggs cracked onto the pavement. His blind punches connected with air.

This angered the men further. _Pussy_. They spat out words like it was a seed spitting contest. They shoved him down and stepped on him. Kyungsoo didn’t even scream, just gasped uselessly as his ribs were kicked between them like a sack of potatoes, pain blooming everywhere again and again. _Fucking fag._

They kicked dirt in his wounds and left him bleeding by Duk Li’s Herbal Corner Store. For a while, Kyungsoo did not move. He did not say anything at all. It was not until he showed up at Jongin’s doorstep that he began to sob.

Jongin had never been so angry in his life. Before today, he would have never thought himself capable of murder. Now he wanted to rush outside, hunt them down. Torture them.

But Kyungsoo needed someone to clean and bandage him. He was shaking very badly, and he kept twitching when Jongin approached him from behind. He tried to swallow his uneven breaths, managing a shaky, “How did they know?”

Jongin saw red. “I don’t know, but I’ll find out. I’ll find all of them.”

━━━━━━━━┓ ✠ ┏━━━━━━━━

As it turned out, Jongin didn’t need to find out. The answer came as the week passed, after Kyungsoo’s face healed up but his ribs remained tender to the touch.

Monday was daycare day. Jongin taught the village school on the side. Twelve kids were enrolled, their ages varying from five to eleven.

“They're cute. They’ll like you, Soo. It’s not often that they get visitors.”

So Kyungsoo arrived in a bright, baggy sweater that covered his bandaged ribs. It was the first time Jongin had seen him in red.

“We have a guest today everyone! You can say hi to Kyungsoo.”

Kevin, the oldest boy in class, poked Kyungsoo’s pale cheek and wiped his hand off on his pants in exaggerated disgust. “Miss Li is right. You’re gross!” Jongin saw how Kyungsoo drew back, how his eyebrows knitted together. Automatically, Jongin pushed the boy hard enough to make him stumble. His big head bobbled a little before his features contorted into an ugly unbridled rage unique to certain children. Jongin’s heart stuttered for a second, torn between guilt and horror and deep, deep frustration. He had never pushed a child before.

“Papa said he saw you when he was fishing. He said he doesn’t like seeing you two dirtying up the water. He said to stop teaching your brainwash and get out.”

To Jongin’s dismay, Kyungsoo stood up and left. Had it not been for the other children staring up at him expectantly, Jongin would have chased him down, apologized to make it okay. But he was tired. And as horrible as it sounded, he was ashamed, too. A twinge of regret settled heavy in his belly as he turned back to the kids.

━━━━━━━━┓ ✠ ┏━━━━━━━━

Kyungsoo stayed in his darkened room for the rest of the week, didn’t even move to open the door at Jongin’s increasingly insistent knocks. He’d torn off his bandages and that stupid red jumper and was lying there naked.

He had peeked through the blinds to see Jongin running through the rain earlier. Hours had passed since the last knock, but Jongin started up with renewed vigor again when the rain became a downpour. Kyungsoo just lied there, dread pooling in the pit of his stomach as Jongin’s knocks became louder and angrier and finally he kicked the door down. He looked drenched through and more than exasperated when he walked in on Kyungsoo lying there like a corpse.

“Soo, you have to get out of here. Don’t you know what’s going on?”

The water beat at the windows but did not burst through. A loud cracking shook the walls like thunder. Palms and pines over twenty feet in length were snapping in the wind and flying into people’s houses.

“Yes, I know,” Kyungsoo said, still unmoving.

“I—” Jongin looked into Kyungsoo’s eyes and saw lucid pools of white. He did not continue his sentence but climbed in bed beside him, wrapping his arms around his cold nakedness. “Can’t you stop this?” he asked, nodding towards the rain.

 _A joke, maybe?_ Kyungsoo spoke cautiously. “I’m not in control here.”

“You know I love you.”

“I know.”

“What can I do to convince you?”

“I said I know.”

Outside, the water came high and reached its cold furious fingers through people’s windows, past their doors. The tide strangled them and choked them of their memories.

Jongin sat up suddenly. Something in his gaze was disturbing. “Soo, the kids. It’s Monday. They’re down there with Chanyeol.”

“I-I know. I don’t know what to do.” Kyungsoo reached one cold palm up to rest against Jongin’s chest. “Jongin, I’m scared.”

Jongin shuddered. He drew back, making the sheets slip off Kyungsoo’s body. “Stop playing me.” Something about him was off. He seemed frantic.

“What do you mean?”

Jongin’s gaze seared into him. “They’re _kids,_ Soo.”

Briefly, Kyungsoo was reminded of his father. He felt like panicking. He felt like over-explaining himself. Why was everything always his fault? “I know that. I don’t want this. I’m not _trying_ to make this happen—”

“So you’re saying it _is_ you?”

“No, that’s not—” Kyungsoo curled into himself. Prickles of unease tingled up his spine. “That’s not what I mean.” He could already feel his mind drifting in fear. He didn’t tell Jongin that he’d already seen Chanyeol earlier today, struggling waist deep through the water with a little girl in his arms. He was by the daycare, which was built on a dip in the land and two houses down, but Kyungsoo had rushed downstairs and opened the door anyways.

Immediately, he was pushed onto his back by a torrent of icy water. He choked and spluttered and was swept out into the street, and by the time he resurfaced Chanyeol and the child were nowhere to be seen. Debris hurtled through the water at a terrifying pace. A brick from Miss Li’s house narrowly missed his head as he gurgled and flailed, his yells for Chanyeol lost in bitter mouthfuls of seawater, his head pushed under again and again by the rolling waves. He kicked back to the surface and searched desperately, his hands and feet numbing fast even though he was paddling like a maniac, fighting the current hard until another wave pushed him back into his entryway. He slammed into the door during this second wave and there was a fresh purple bruise on his side now, but if Jongin noticed he didn’t mention it.

If Jongin knew the storm was this bad he would almost certainly go out to find the kids, but Kyungsoo knew there was no way they, nor Chanyeol, nor Jongin, would make it. After getting thrown back into his own doorway by the tide, Kyungsoo had paddled out again, and again, and again, and each time he felt more terrified, and exhausted, and terrified at the prospect of being exhausted, until at last his legs cramped and gave out and he had to pull himself back into his entryway with shaking arms. For a while he just laid on the floor coughing weakly, too exhausted to sob. His heart was racing then, and for a second he thought he was going to die.

His heart was racing now, too, hammering away as Jongin rose out of bed and began to pace, his mind torn between years of fear and superstition and the two sweet summers he had spent with Kyungsoo.

Kyungsoo swallowed and shuddered as tears leaked into his ears and became salty puddles. He closed his eyes, hating the way Jongin was staring at him; it reminded him of the way the old fishermen used to stare when Father made him work outside. They looked at him like he had two heads. It made him feel so lonely. Had Jongin changed? Or deep down, was this how Jongin had always seen him? Even with his eyes shut, he thought he could feel Jongin’s eyes staring at him, cold. He wanted to disappear.

The cold was seeping in through the roof. Jongin eventually climbed back in bed as if nothing had happened. He pretended not to hear Kyungsoo’s whisper, barely audible over the crashing of rain and waves: “Please believe me.”

After a few tense moments, he grunted. “I’m sorry.” He nuzzled his nose into Kyungsoo’s hair, his stiff neck, and sniffed. “I love you. What can I do to convince you?”

Kyungsoo blinked rapidly. Felt relieved and confused and vaguely ashamed. “Don’t let me go.”

━━━━━━━━┓ ✠ ┏━━━━━━━━

Kyungsoo’s house was the last to be taken by storm. It started as a dripping from the roof. The water crept in through the cracks and became a trickle, drawing damp lines across the walls and becoming tiny rivers and then waterfalls that broke through the window and gushed in like a firehose. The water rose around their bed and lifted them out the window to float down new rivers that rushed two floors above where the streets used to be. All the while, Kyungsoo was resting his head across Jongin’s collarbone, listening to the offbeat pumping of their hearts.

They lied like this while the waters rose and pitched for two days and three nights before drying up and slipping into the sea, leaving behind streets of trash and broken trees. Houses had been uprooted, the inhabitants had been swallowed. Only the occasional stone lion remained intact.

Jongin remained motionless. They were on a mattress in the middle of the street. Kyungsoo decided that his brain had dissolved and leaked out of his ears in the rain; he was exhausted of feeling. A weary, restless frustration thrummed through his bones as he ran toward the line where the sky met the back of the retreating sea. There was no point in staying if he was truly alone.

“Where are you going?” Jongin asked, sitting up from the bed.

 _Chase me, hold me down, don’t let me go,_ Kyungsoo prayed. He lunged for the waves, fell back into the sea and let himself drift out to the horizon where he could be a stone, a branch, a log. He looked toward the remains of the broken village and his heart dropped as he saw Jongin sit there, rubbing his eyes. The moon came out and the tide came in, and then he was sucked into oblivion.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!   
> Twitter: [@_Jazzine](https://mobile.twitter.com/_Jazzine)  
> Instagram: [@jazzine_art](https://www.instagram.com/jazzine_art/)  
> AFF: [Jazzine](https://www.asianfanfics.com/profile/view/1021152)  
> 


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